


A Little Crazy

by navaan



Category: Ally McBeal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 23:20:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21947188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: The moment isn't perfect — but that's not a bad omen.
Relationships: Ally McBeal/Larry Paul
Comments: 12
Kudos: 20
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	A Little Crazy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evilythedwarf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilythedwarf/gifts).



When Ally McBeal walks into his office — into his office that used to be her therapists — it’s an omen and he believes in omens. 

Larry likes her the moment she stumbles into his life and starts to talk. Ally McBeal is neurotic, and smart. She's complicated and likes to complicate the world to match her.

Deep down he realizes they have things in common.

Issues. Emotions. An outlook on life.

Maybe.

Letting go and holding on gets complicated for both of them.

He’s charmed.

* * *

A dance is the turning point — they go from their antagonistic back and forth right into hand-holding and then de facto living together in her shared flat.

It’s cozy and intimate and falls into place.

Happiness isn't new but it’s different with Ally. He's himself — a little eccentric, grown-up when life calls for it, crazy when she’s crazy with him, crazy for her when she’s not. They go out or stay in and never get tired of each other. 

Most important, maybe, he's never as much himself as when he is with Ally.

* * *

He leaves. He has to see his son. Because he hates goodbyes, he leaves a note. 

But it’s not really goodbye. 

"I will be back."

He comes back.

He promised.

He promised Sam.

He promised Ally.

He promised himself. 

Being with Ally feels right.

And for that long it works.

* * *

They are both neurotic, have their little ticks. They charm each other with their eccentricities, with the calm they bring to each other's lives. It's simple to fall into this life without building a routine because they are just good for each other. He makes little use of his apartment, because she prefers her safe space and he's alright with it, because he's comfortable when she's comfortable.

argue about drawers and furniture but it's of no consequence when they stand side by side in the kitchen preparing dinner.

"Is this what it's like with the right person?" Ally asks Renee in the morning and Larry freezes with his toothbrush still dangling in his mouth and listens. 

"Like what?"

"That I don't mind that he's here when I'm a mess."

"You're always a mess," Renee jokes. "But, yes. He's the right person."

"I know. I just wanted to hear you say it." 

The women chuckle together.

He thinks it might be a sign too.

After all he came back from Chicago and he hasn't thought about leaving again even once.

* * *

Corretta looks at him. "Why are you looking so pale? You're not sick I hope?"

"No," he shook his head. "I'm not sick."

"What is it then? Something to do with Ally? You didn't mess it up with her, did you?"

He squints at her. "That's the first thing you ask?"

"You're nervous. What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything... yet."

Coretta gave him _a look_. "You're not going to mess this up. The two of you are so lovey dovey. You're the old fashioned couple that just..."

"Grates?"

"No, you are just perfect for each other."

He considers the statement, his own feelings and admits: "I thought so the moment she walked into my office and she decided to hate my guts."

"That sounds sweet," Corretta says but shakes her head. "A story you'll still tell your grandchildren."

His eyes widen. She's right. It's the kind of story that you'll tell in years to come -- about how Ally walked into his office looking for her therapist, how she had mistaken him for her successor. 

He had looked at many places.

"I wouldn't have met her if it weren't for the office."

"You would have," Coretta disagreed. "You would have met in court and fought each other tooth and nail with all the tricks in the book." She wriggles her eyebrows. 

He leaned back in his chair, raised and eyebrow. "You make it sound hot."

"I make it sound corny," she disagreed. "So, what is this, Larry?"

He weighed the question. His palms were sweaty.

"Larry? That bad?" Corretta wasn't joking anymore. She sounded worried.

Finally, he pulled the small box out of his jacket pocket and put it on the desk.

Corretta's eyes widened. She didn't need to open the jewelry box to know what it was.

"Wow," she said and sat down in a chair on the other side of the desk.

“What do you think? Too soon?”

She gave him a lopsided grin. “If it feels right, it’s right.”

* * *

It’s Ally — so this time he wants to do it perfectly.

Correctly, maybe. So he talks it through with Corretta and plans are made. 

“Old fashioned couple,” she says, “old fashioned way of asking. Dinner. Surprise ring. She’ll find it and know and you won’t even have to say anything.”

It sounds romantic and just like the kind of story Ally will tell everyone with the dreamy look in her eyes. He loves the look.

This proposal will be the second story they get to tell for years to come: _She walked into my office thinking I was the new therapist. He proposed to me with desert._

Out of the ordinary and old fashioned — side by side.

Then he fidgets his way through dinner, the ring goes to the wrong table… and in his mind the whole string of perfection unravels. 

Ally picks up on his mood too.

“Are you alright?” she asks twice on their way back home.

He smiles and nods.

But the real question is: Am I doing the right thing?

* * *

He miscalculates.

Badly.

The ring going to the wrong table seems like the bad omen he’s been waiting for in too much love and perfection. He’s as scared of messing up relationships as Ally is of being alone in the end. 

He calls his ex-wife in a panic and needs her to tell him if this is the right thing to do. She would know — after all they broke it off after getting married.

“It was a dream and it had nothing to do with Larry,” he hears Ally tell Renee — and it sounds grave. Normally she tells him about her nightmares, her crazy hallucination about the emotions that she can’t control. She doesn’t mention it to him when he kisses her goodbye that morning.

It's another little sign.

* * *

Corretta warns him.

Ally catches them and — dumps ice cream on his head.

It's Ally.

In a way letting her emotions run away with her, while he's trying hard to keep his in, is healthy.

And this is another omen.

It's in that moment — when Ally picks up the cream whipper and is about to finish the job — that he realizes: all of this is _them_ , all of them _is_ just like their beginning.

He fought for her then.

Cream gets in his nose.

"Will you marry me?" he asks.

Her eyes go wide. 

"Now you ask her?" his _ex_ -wife asks — not surprised but maybe wondering why this isn't a bad omen.

Ally stares at him with eyes wider than John's. "Yes," she says simply and without a stutter and then gives him a him the sweetest kiss he's ever received — getting sticky stuff all over herself.

* * *

The get married in Boston but move to Chicago where they pick out new furniture together and Ally finds it easy to get into another firm. 

"We're a family," she explains, "but that only means it's better not to work together all day."

He doesn't interfere with her job choices. "I get the blue sofa, though," he insists. 

In the end they find a sofa they both immediately fall in love with — and that's how they make their decisions as a married couple.

Omens.

* * *

A few months into the marriage, things are so perfect that Ally muses, sooner or later something will disrupt the peace. He gives her a lopsided grin: "When's there ever peace?"

He clashed with her law firm. Sam got hurt during soccer and _she_ 'd been first at the hospital. _Something_ is always happening.

The doorbell rings as if prompted. Larry's the one who opens the door.

"Hello, can I help you."

"I'm looking for Allison McBeal," the girl with the blond curly hairs asks and blinks up at him. "Are you Mr. Paul?"

He frowns. "Is there something you need from Ally? Legal counsel?"

"She's my mum."

They both here a mug clatter fall to the ground behind Larry.

"Something you didn't tell me dear?" he asks calmly, not sure what to make of the ten year old and her serious face. 

Maddie Harrington introduces herself. They let her in, and Ally talks to her while he tries to figure out how to call her parents.

But it looks — as crazy as it sounds — there's a parent right here.

Ally looks shocked and overwhelmed, ready to run.

He grins and kisses the top of her head. "We'll figure it out."

Life is crazy. But so are they. No storm they can't weather.


End file.
